"Myhusband-whale" part of private collection. Chukchi and Eskimo folklore is full of fairy tales about animals. These are the most ancient fairy tales. They reflect the traces of beliefs connected with the adoration of animals, signs of primordial mythology. Well-loved tales about the marriage to a whale go back to primordial syncretism when religion and art were inseparable. Extract from Yuri Rytkheu's legend "When the Whales go away". "Early in the morning the men with sharply-ground knives went down to the shore to start dressing the whale. Armagirgin went ahead. He stared ahead with his wide-open eyes. But where is the whale? Where is this enormous bulk of fat and meat they had dragged up the day before? Armagirgin ran to the water. Something small could be seen at the edge of the surf, washed by waves. And there was no whale. Instead of him there lay a man. He was dead, and the waves fingered his black hair. And far around until the horizon there lay an enormous empty sea with no hint of life in it. The whales had gone."